Feeling Good

The Science of Well-Being

C. Robert Cloninger, M.D.

The separation of biomedical and psychosocial approaches to mental illness has hampered both research and treatment because only a fully integrated view of life permits a person to develop wisdom and well-being. In this long-awaited work, psychiatrist Robert Cloninger argues that all persons have spontaneous needs for happiness, self-understanding, and love, and he describes a way toward achieving psychological coherence that satisfies these basic human needs. The novel synthesis that he provides is based on the latest findings and concepts in neuroscience, genetics, long-term biopsychosocial research, and complex networks, combined with a reliable, quantitative way of measuring human thought, social relationships, and creativity.

Feeling Good

The Science of Well-Being

C. Robert Cloninger, M.D.

Description

All human beings have spontaneous needs for happiness, self-understanding, and love. In Feeling Good: The Science of Well Being, psychiatrist Robert Cloninger describes a way to coherent living that satisfies these strong basic needs through growth in the uniquely human gift of self-awareness. The scientific findings that led Dr. Cloninger to expand his own views in a stepwise manner during 30 years of research and clinical experience are clearly presented so that readers can consider the validity of his viewpoint for themselves. The principles of well-being are based on a non-reductive scientific paradigm that integrates findings from all the biomedical and psychosocial sciences. Reliable methods are described for measuring human thought and social relationships at each step along the path of self-aware consciousness. Practical mental exercises for stimulating the growth of self-awareness are also provided. The methods are supported by data from brain imaging, genetics of personality, and longitudinal biopsychosocial studies.Feeling Good: The Science of Well-Being will be of value to anyone involved in the sciences of the mind or the treatment of mental disorders. It will also interest theologians, philosophers, social scientists, and lay readers because it provides contemporary scientific concepts and language for addressing the perennial human questions about being, knowledge, and conduct.

Feeling Good

The Science of Well-Being

C. Robert Cloninger, M.D.

Table of Contents

1. A brief philosophy of well-being2. The search for an adequate psychology3. The measurement and movement of human thought4. The social psychology of transcendentalism5. Psychophysical theories of contemplation6. Psychophysiology of awareness7. The epigenetic revolution8. The irreductible triad of well-beingAppendix: The Quantitative Measurement of Thought

Feeling Good

The Science of Well-Being

C. Robert Cloninger, M.D.

Reviews and Awards

"Cloninger, a distinguished US psychiatrist, starts this book with the question, 'why is it so difficult to be happy?' He is critical of conventional scientific psychiatry's approach to the answer to this question, and throughout the book invokes concepts which science finds it difficult to grapple with--like 'coherence.' He ranges with profound insight widely over philosophy and history plus many other sciences, including mathematics, to take an intelligent stab at the central problems of well-being." --British Journal of Psychiatry

"Cloninger, a distinguished US psychiatrist, starts this book with the question, 'why is it so difficult to be happy'? He is critical of conventional scientific psychiatry's approach to the answer to this question, and throughout the book invokes concepts which science finds difficult to grapple with--like 'coherence'. He ranges with profound insight widely over philosophy and history plus many other sciences, including mathematics, to take an intelligent stab at the central problems of well-being." --British Journal of Psychiatry

"A remarkably ambitious and scholarly masterpiece from a gifted psychiatrist with a deep understanding of human nature. By weaving a fascinating tapestry of philosophy, psychology, mystical experience, the latest neurobiology and genetics, Cloninger has produced fresh and practical insights into the human mind."--Frederick K. Goodwin, M.D., Former Director, National Institute of Mental Health, Host of public radio's The Infinite Mind

"In this audacious new book, Robert Cloninger provides a rare synthesis of the biological, the psychosocial, and the spiritual. The author manages to be comprehensive in scope, scholarly in method, yet accessible in his prose style. He forges a new integrative understanding of what it means to be human in a provocative and imaginative tour de force."--Glen O. Gabbard, M.D., Brown Foundation Chair of Psychoanalysis and Professor of Psychiatry, Baylor College of Medicine